"So yes, I think the auteur theory ruined him-- or at least his belief in it. And I think that belief is dangerous to any director. I mentioned before that no director I ever met said out loud he believed in the auteur theory. But God knows what's silently eating away at them in the dark nights of their souls." - William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade

Let me start this review by saying that I enjoyed this game. It represents the peak crystallization of certain trends in the development of gameplay that I've been interested in and focused on for a long time: trends that began in joke games like Takeshi no Chousenjou and Desert Bus, which explored the interplay between tedious gameplay as an evocative device and the story. Yoko Taro was originally doing things like this with the Drakengard series and the first Nier, albeit perhaps unintentionally. But in Death Stranding it really reaches a critical threshold. Death Stranding is to tedious gameplay, in the context of the craft of motion in games, what Mario 64 was to fun and intuitive gameplay. This may sound like an insult but it's not. If games are meant to convey a broad range of experiences then gameplay needs to be able to reinforce those experiences, which means some excellent games that explore unpleasant themes should naturally have gameplay that's not "fun" in a traditional sense. This doesn't make Bubsy 3d a great game or anything, there's still the matter of both craftmanship and agreement between gameplay and story.

These attributes make the game important. It is important for other reasons as well, because of its association with Hideo Kojima for instance, who was near the center of the very successful and groundbreaking Metal Gear Solid series for many years. It represents his first true breakaway project, as well as the first project where he had near total artistic control.

So the game is important, but the question is, is the game good? The answer is no. Almost all video games are not good, to be fair. It's not a very impressive medium. And it's unfortunate, because it's really just a failure of writing that undermines the game. The core scenario is fine. You can imagine lots of writers doing a lot with the basic plot hooks and themes here, including today's popular major pulp writers like Gaiman or King. So a professional writer could have done something with this material. Really, any professional writer at all. But instead it was written by Kojima who is manifestly not a writer.

The writing of this game has structural problems, problems of tone, problems of non sequitur, problems of both infodump and complete lack of exposition. I am not a professional writer so I can't really do justice with a critique. To be honest I am a bad writer myself. The most infamous thing I ever wrote was written during a bout of temporary psychosis. When I say that Kojima's notionally sober writing is on par with my psychotic writing, that may not mean anything to you, having not read my writing, but it frames my own interpretation of the game.

It is a dream like, fugue like mess, where individual images stand out and try yet fail to do the heavy lifting of establishing a story. The images themselves are captivating, perhaps especially so, but they can't string together the narrative of the game by themselves. It is ironic, but in a game about strands, the story here is a free-floating mess of nonsense punctuated by discrete images that never come together to form a whole.

And the meta-irony is that a game about coming together was made in the context of a man who bought into his own hype about being an auteur to the point that he seemingly forgot he was not, in fact, capable of carrying his projects alone. It's not surprising that it doesn't work in that context: the themes of the game are not in agreement with the way it was produced. Next time let's hope Kojima-sama hires a writer and limits his own input to the story to scenario writing and the tweaking of gameplay and story to complement each other.

If you want to play a game that's important, by all means play Death Stranding. Or if you only want to experience the novel gameplay. But if you want a complete experience look elsewhere.

"So yes, I think the auteur theory ruined him-- or at least his belief in it. And I think that belief is dangerous to any director. I mentioned before that no director I ever met said out loud he believed in the auteur theory. But God knows what's silently eating away at them in the dark nights of their souls." - William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade Let me start this review by saying that I enjoyed this game. It represents the peak crystallization of certain trends in the development of gameplay that I've been interested in and focused on for a long time: trends that began in joke games like Takeshi no Chousenjou and Desert Bus, which explored the interplay between tedious gameplay as an evocative device and the story. Yoko Taro was originally doing things like this with the Drakengard series and the first Nier, albeit perhaps unintentionally. But in Death Stranding it really reaches a critical threshold. Death Stranding is to tedious gameplay, in the context of the craft of motion in games, what Mario 64 was to fun and intuitive gameplay. This may sound like an insult but it's not. If games are meant to convey a broad range of experiences then gameplay needs to be able to reinforce those experiences, which means some excellent games that explore unpleasant themes should naturally have gameplay that's not "fun" in a traditional sense. This doesn't make Bubsy 3d a great game or anything, there's still the matter of both craftmanship and agreement between gameplay and story. These attributes make the game important. It is important for other reasons as well, because of its association with Hideo Kojima for instance, who was near the center of the very successful and groundbreaking Metal Gear Solid series for many years. It represents his first true breakaway project, as well as the first project where he had near total artistic control. So the game is important, but the question is, is the game good? The answer is no. Almost all video games are not good, to be fair. It's not a very impressive medium. And it's unfortunate, because it's really just a failure of writing that undermines the game. The core scenario is fine. You can imagine lots of writers doing a lot with the basic plot hooks and themes here, including today's popular major pulp writers like Gaiman or King. So a professional writer could have done something with this material. Really, any professional writer at all. But instead it was written by Kojima who is manifestly not a writer. The writing of this game has structural problems, problems of tone, problems of non sequitur, problems of both infodump and complete lack of exposition. I am not a professional writer so I can't really do justice with a critique. To be honest I am a bad writer myself. The most infamous thing I ever wrote was written during a bout of temporary psychosis. When I say that Kojima's notionally sober writing is on par with my psychotic writing, that may not mean anything to you, having not read my writing, but it frames my own interpretation of the game. It is a dream like, fugue like mess, where individual images stand out and try yet fail to do the heavy lifting of establishing a story. The images themselves are captivating, perhaps especially so, but they can't string together the narrative of the game by themselves. It is ironic, but in a game about strands, the story here is a free-floating mess of nonsense punctuated by discrete images that never come together to form a whole. And the meta-irony is that a game about coming together was made in the context of a man who bought into his own hype about being an auteur to the point that he seemingly forgot he was not, in fact, capable of carrying his projects alone. It's not surprising that it doesn't work in that context: the themes of the game are not in agreement with the way it was produced. Next time let's hope Kojima-sama hires a writer and limits his own input to the story to scenario writing and the tweaking of gameplay and story to complement each other. If you want to play a game that's important, by all means play Death Stranding. Or if you only want to experience the novel gameplay. But if you want a complete experience look elsewhere.